Living/Cooking in Shanghai

Luckily working at world expo, the USA Pavilion was generous to provide amazing accommodations that were beyond my standard for "Living in China." My current apartment @ expo village can be compared to the newer international dorms at Beida (that I couldn't live in which sucked!), but better!
We have
-fully furnished kitchen, bathroom, living room
and everything is provided and furnished. I love the fridge, the electric stove, the sink and some useful kitchen utensils, and A TOASTER!!!! THe best new features about our newer apartment that I relocated after a month (finally!!!) staying in my temporary place are the MICROWAVE, THE LAUNDRY MACHINE, and the RICE COOKER!!!!! Everyone is supposed to get an iron/board....where did ours go? I am thankful for the big drying racks too.


For the most part, I feel that my diet in Shanghai is far better than what I encountered last year when I was in Beijing.

It's hard to believe that I have spent so much time in China the past year. As I look back through all the pictures that I snapped, I have a obvious sense of nostalgia . In this case I will always remember how much my amazing Fall roommate Sarah and I would op-out of the 食堂 (Dining hall) food and fork out US prices for vegetarian pizza from Kro's nest (best pizza you can get in Beijing!), or grab some naan bread/curry at Ganges. Yes we would eat an incredible amount of food, food babies did come and go.
It got too repetitive for Sarah (as a vegetarian) to only eat vegetarian dumplings, and some vegetable dishes at Beida. What was frustrating was when she bought a veggie dish but there were tiny pieces of meat hidden under those leafy greens. Veggie dumplings or any dumpling at all every day will get tiresome.
I felt like all I ate in Beijing were carbs, carbs and more carbs. I got tired of eating stir fry, noodles, noodles....more noodles, and congee for my daily meals.
I craved what my western stomach craved; salad, fresh veggies, a sandwich, and a home cooked meal. Sadly enough we didn't have any fridges or a kitchen at our dorms. Many of us pined for something home cooked or the overwhelming desire to bake cookies.
My diet sucked hands down. I should have been more pro active about buying fruit and veg and thus I gained about 10 lbs or an uglier face....who knows.

Now living in Shanghai I feel more motivated and finally got my bearings straight to go get groceries and finally getting my groove on (As Aunt Dora says) to cook.
A few weeks back I finally managed to make thai peanut noodles with Rob while Jamie and Kelly (my other roommates) prepared a GIANT feast of steak, pasta, mashed potatoes and veggies. Here's a pic of our splendid meal. Sadly my recipe called for the minced garlic and ginger to be thrown into a food processor and make it into a pulpy juice matter, but I don't possess that amazing luxury here. Minced to the death I did to those poor veggies!!

Success!!!!

My next goal was attempting at making some thai green curry. In Boulder, Tim would always make this fantastic creamy green curry. So one day I snatched the recipe from him, fairly simple really, but the only challenge was finding the ingredients...

This cooking adventure led me to learn something/meet new people (no joke)
-There was no green curry paste at walmart, so I had to substitute for thai red curry sauce.
-Finding lemon juice and fish sauce (I finally learned it's also known as oyster sauce and I finally learned how to say oyster sauce in Mandarin)
- Getting coconut milk (thank god for foreign supermarkets)
-Basil (after searching high and low, I couldn't find IN TIME at the supermarkets for basil, but LUCKILY I managed to get some from our USAP VIP kitchen a handful of fragrant fresh basil leaves. Thank you Chef Tony!

(Starting up the curry, cooking the onions with curry paste)


The recipe called for veggies, so we decided to put in a colorful amount of vegetables; carrots, cherry tomatoes, chinese eggplant, and squash. To Tim's lovely advice, we boiled the carrots till soft so then we didn't have to cook everything so long. Jocelyn is about to do a taste check!

30-40 minutes later


HOORAY!!! WE HAVE CURRY!!!!!!




As Julia Child said, "Bon Appetit!"

Working at the USAP pt 2

This is part two in your journey around the USA pavilion
Today I take to you Fast Acess-Act III-Act or
I'll just take you through the whole show -


Fast Access is where people who have RSVP'd, in a wheel chair, handicapped in any sort of way (they show a disabled person's ID card), sponsors, stroller or possess a Green colored expo working I.D can go through this lane,





Entertaining people at turnstiles before they enter the pavilion





Welcome to the USA pavilion



Welcome to Act I




Act III The Stevie Game



Break time (45 minute break)
I tend to avoid the staff cafetieria aka Stafcaf which always upsets my stomach, but you'll always find something amusing when you're there.
I'm a fan of Chinglish and ...I wonder what one little dirty is?

Spirit of Texas Week

If it weren't for Hilary Clinton helping us getting some corporate funding then none of us would be able to come here to participate at the Expo. This time I have to actually thank the State of Texas for being one of our sponsors. So in the spirit of giving thanks, we had a dedicated week to all things Texan. From dressing up as NASA astronaut jumpsuits to enjoying the delightful homey melody of a swing fiddle, we are entertaining everyone who comes to the USA pavilion

Give it up for the Ford Marshall Swing Band from Austin Texas!!!!


After weeks of working the routine: working day and day out, showering, peeling off my sweaty USAP uniform off my skin, sleeping, refusing to wake up after the fourth snooze button I HAVE FINALLY found the energy to leave the prison gates of expo village and enjoyed a night of relaxtion out on the town.
Not only finding the energy to escape but I have crawled out of the lazy hole/rut I have been in lately. No matter what shift I am in AM/PM I lost the stamina to even think about leaving the comfort of my bed, but ENOUGH with the excuses! THe weather is no longer morbid, or torturous to the senses, I can enjoy Shanghai again!!! (without sweating!)

I'm trying to be more proactive/social with my activities; community service, hanging out with my friends, a little spontaneity rather than be on repeat with the work routine. I've had enough!

Tonight I was invited to dinner by Lavinia where we met her very excited and hospitable Auntie figure at the Shanghai Heavenly Restaurant in Xujiahui. It always felt like a journey to get into the city, but it's an illusion that heat brainwashed me into. Afterwards I boarded the subway to the Wooden Box cafe (dear subway: our relationship was broken off for weeks. i"m so sorry Shanghai metro. )The cool breeze rushes past me as the subway speeds towards the next destination and I love the feeling every time.

It feels so mellow to have a glass of red wine and let my ears sail away to the sooth melody of the country swing band playing. The fiddle slowly rocks me into a peaceful state.
This high was the best remedy to ure all the crazy work hours, dealing with tempers and attitude, elitism and prejudice

Thank you Ford Marshall Swing band for great great music
Thank you dear sweet America for all the great music you have produced!

Maintaining my energy (sanity)

The weather in Shanghai has finally decided to take a step down from a raging fever of 104 F (40C) to a calmng 25-30 degrees Celsisus aka 80-88 ish deegress. There are the Indian summer days that come out of nowhere then I turn into a pile of mush. It's not fun.

In order to maintain some amount of sanity as I work and herd in thousands upon thousands of workers...it's good to have the following

1) A good sense of humor and laughing a lot
2) Staying hydrated during these hot summer months (and yes it's been very very hot. If I forget/get lazy and not take a shower when I come home from work I feel like a sticky piece of candy lying in my bed. Not the best feeling in the world
3) Not eating junk food. And yet it is so easy to eat crap upon crap at the expo. I am surrounded by fast food chains (KFC, Pizza Hut, Burger king, junk food at the Family Mart)
4) Playing down people's dumb antics and sensitive questions with rhetorical questions. "Are you Chinese are American?"
Response: "This is the USA pavilion isn't it?"
5) oatmeal w/honey and peaches for breakfast
6) Having a daily workout/sweating like a madman as you dance and entertain people at turnstiles just so they can put up with the 10 minute wait. Whenever the turnstiles lock up when the count hits 500 people, many tend to freak out because 1) their loved ones are already in the overture 2) separation creates panic. I noticed if you remind them "hey it's only 7-10 minutes" then they calm down. Sometimes that's not the case and people duck under and flee into the pavilion. That's my/security's cue to escort them back. this escalates at times when people get very upset, start shouting at me or any other USAP student Ambassador.
"BUT MY KID IS IN THERE< MY MOM IS IN THERE< WHY WON'T YOU LET ME IN???!!!"
7) Daily stretching.
8) Blasting some good music at turnstiles, such as MGMT, Shakira, anything to pump you up. But I will never fist pump in the air.

I've never been nearly knocked down by volume until I came to China. Never would I have thought someone's screaming volume could make me take several steps back.

Learning from Expo

Every day working at the USA comes all kinds of stories, sometimes they are good and sometimes bad. There are days when I come home tired, stressed out and very upset from what I encountered; not so friendly remarks, arguments, even to the extent of brawls in our queue lines (that's right some idiot decided to have a smackdown with the plastic chairs a few weeks ago), cat fights, and getting tackled by old ladies. Luckilly I haven't been pushed down by an old lady, but my co worker Kaitlin did. Perhaps football originated in China because I've never seen old people do such a thing.
People definitely have tested my patience, sometimes people's bizzare behaviors (such as jumping over turnstiles, smoking on our grounds, getting a little physical, harassing...kids urinating on trees....yes it's not sugar coated dream land sometimes) really get on my nerves.
Then one day, I lost control. It's perfectly normal according to our Ops duty to get really stressed out and lose our patience when at work. Afterwards I felt terrible getting a little testy with two women who were trying to sneak into our fast access lane. What dawned on me/clicked in my head was when my ops duty Luke said to me, "Susan, deescalate."

That's all it took to calm my senses down and made me realize that I needed to exhale and release the frustration out. That one word was a revelation. That's all I needed to remind myself of every time something was about to frustrate me.
every morning or afternoon before I go through the security check-in I constantly have this mantra in my head "deescalate, remember to deescalate, take a step back, calm down, just remember to breathe (otherwise you're gonna pop a vein!!)"

Lesson from expo: remember to deescalate and always take a step back from a sticky situation.

I usually try to remind myself every morning as I walk to work to not

Beloved DPRK

Practically every single day at expo, several countries or provincial pavilions will have their "Expo Day" and today was an exceptional day because on September 6th, 2010 North Korea (DPRK) decided to have its national day.

If no one realized this, but this girl has weird interests, and particularly I have some odd fascination with the nation that is North Korea. My odd obsession with North Korea peaked this spring 2010 when I was studying in Beijing. By the spring semester, my good friend from Fall term Jane :) sent me a care package filled with many goodies, such as crackers, granola, a charming letter and two good reads all on North Korea. The first was "Escaping North Korea" by Mike Kim and "Nothing to Envy" and I munched on this new knowledge like there was no tomorrow. Selina, my new spring roommate got a little worried about my sanity, and teased me about my obsession with North Korea.
She also made this erie connection. Whenever I read Mao or my NK books, I got really these stomachaches, were the books trying to kill me? Why did I always get a bit nauseous? It was very odd.


i went to the NK pavilion today to see any special activities took place. The only difference was the pavilion opened at 1 in the afternoon (They had festivities CLOSED OFF TO THE PUBLIC ) and the female employees dressed in the traditional "hanbok" outfit, though they wore a very cheap quality barbie doll like pink with dazzling sparkles. I thought it was slightly tacky.

SO TO add another book to my COLLECTION,I got myself some bed time reading, "the benevolent sun" which is about the beloved leader of DPRK; Kim Il Sung. I also purchased some lovely stamps and some (I'm pretty sure) authentic North Korean pins that also stabbed me in the thumb because they have no pin backs, it's just a pin needle glued to the back and you can just stab into your landiard or into your skin as you clip into your shirt. When I was making my purchases, I bumped into Ben Cohen and Dave from USAP who also came to see the excitement at the DPRK National Expo day.

"nice, you actually got it (the book)? I'll expect a book report" Dave said.
Ben said he'll borrow it when i'm done, and we all found out "the benevolent sun" is a trilogy since I saw vol 2 on the top shelf and I got vol 1. The nice North Korean lady said 2 and 3 were coming soon.

I declined the offer a plastic bag for my book saying that I could put it in my bag (cuz I always do that, trying to be more eco friendly/i'm from boulder, we live in trees) , but the lady assured me that it was better to put the book in a plastic bag. I was getting the feeling it was respect for Kim Il Sung's face who is on the cover.

"are you Chinese?" she asked in English
I thought about my response and to avoid any awkwardness I quickly said "yes I am," knowing that if I said "American" my chances of friendly conversation with this particuarly nice lady would cease. Sometimes my Asian appearance helps disguise my actual identity.
"Oh!" in surprise. "but your English is really good!"
How flattering, what to do? Pull out the Asian girl "cute" card and blush, hide your face and say "oh you are so nice!! Thank you!"

In the North Korean pavilion, there are several monitors showcasing all kinds of North Korean features, but there is one giant screen that plays North Korean music spectaculars. There along the lines of this video shown below.

Working at the USA pavilion (Life in Queue)

Depending on the weekly schedule, everyone's rotation will be different. This week in particular or for the most part (in my case), I get assigned this cycle: Queue---Turnstiles----Act III and then my 45 minute break


First we sign in, this procedure was just implemented because the security guards have accidently let in a few people in who were USAP staff. It's hard for them to tell if this foreigner is indeed working at the USAP because a lot of the times they can't really tell the difference. So, as long as we have our expo ID's on then were in the clear. Sure it's a pain in the ass, but I'll put it up just for safety reasons.

(Some of these photos were taken a few weeks ago, and I only managed to post these up cuz I was sick as a dog)

Life at Queue
the heat and humidity penetrate my skin, I have no tolerance for humidity so I suffer under this heat (i'm not used to this so it looks like I shower in sweat sometimes, quite gross)

When visitors flock into the queue lanes, many or I'd say 90% of them get stumped by the look of the 6 different lanes (that all lead up to the pavilion entrance) that look like a metallic maze. Which one to go? Where will this take me? The answer is obviously Uruguay (which is across the street).

"Is this the USA pavilion?"
"No this is the French pavilion.."
"What??? but but...."
"GOT YA!! head to lane 6"
and not to be a smart ass I tend to mess with people and tell them that this leads to the Brazillian pavilion. I hate to be a prankster, but it amuses me and makes the day go faster when I joke/mess with visitors.

"Which lane do I go into?" "Are they all the same?" "Where does this take me?"
So every minute, we have to repeat that all the lanes are exactly the same, take whichever lane you want.
The sad reality is that when one person goes into lane 4, everyone will follow...the lemming theory, my friend Nick says. So true.
Then when we realize there needs to be more people to fill up the other lanes, we'll usher people "GO TO LANE 5!" and then visitors ears perk up like a pack of obedient dogs and rush into lane 5. Or other people in the other lanes decide to duck under the poles and shift into lane 4 or 5 or whatever one we just shout "there's less people in lane..."
This is absolutely baffling to all us Student Ambassadors when we see visitors convinced that they have to duck under these metal queue lanes


Ever since the giant expo stamp fiasco (that I never witnessed) that led to our suspension of the USA expo passport stamp, we post in bold Chinese words "THE USA pavilion does not have an expo passport stamp, thank you for your understanding."
This does not go well with a fair majority of visitors who want to come in and have their expo passport stamped. What upsets me the most is when some visitors see the notice sign, and want to leave the queue immediately.
"THE USA PAVILION DOESN'T ISSUE A STAMP???? THIS IS UNFAIR" I apologize to many visitors, but people get really upset, they ask me why, demand where the location of the stamping device is, and some are convinced that I know the whereabouts of the stamp, possess the stamp in my pockets


Sometimes when I cut off the queue overflow lane (up until people start moving), some people panic, believing that I separated them from their families which I don't!! I think this is my favorite part about the queue position because this is where I have a few minutes to talk to people and for the most part people are really nice to me. I have seen all kinds of weird people who ask me the darnedest things, "are you Chinese or American? (take a side as if to say)." "so you don't look American (white), how is it possible that you're American?" When I answer "cuz I was born there." some people still are convinced I'm not....Then I have people who complain of the heat (and I know it's 35 C out and it's boiling hot)

Though there are those moments when I interact with people who are very understanding and very sympathetic, who are not cynical, who do not flee the queue lanes just because we don't issue the passport stamp and those are the moments that I always have to remember rather than the negatives ones. I recall one instance when this older woman said, "you guys must work really hard, it's not easy doing this every day is it? So thank you!"
I was taken back because it had been quite a while since I've recieved some positive feedback from visitors.
I played the modest card, "we try our best, thank you ."
"it's really hot, you guys have the hardest jobs guiding us in, it's not easy, I completely understand what you're going through."

"Thanks for understanding our daily pain" I teased,
then she asked, "where are you from? the states or China?"
"I'm from the states, born and raised."
Now when I reply with that, most people tend to be very surprised since I do not have an American accent when Mandarin comes out of my mouth.
"how is your Chinese so good?"
"well it's alright (modesty card sorry), my parents are Chinese."
"Oh I see, so you're an American Born Chinese 华裔, that's really great."
Then the conversation continued and I informed her about how the USAP works and we 80 students are your guides to the pavilion, she was very understanding and sincere with her gratitude and appreciation that we came out to Shanghai to help as many people/deal with all kinds of crap people throw at us."
It's refreshing to have the sympathy in an 8 hour day when people can say the rudest comments to me and other Asian Americans who are seen outside working.






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